Elen Lewis tells the tale of Hindustan Unilever, an Indian company that is driving growth by balancing the needs of the community with the ambitions of its brands
As companies and brands increasingly consider their social, environmental and ethical impact on the world at large, two of the most creative examples of sustainability come from Hindustan Unilever, changing lives in rural India.
Hindustan Lever has taken an innovative approach to penetrating rural markets that's driven growth as well as generated local wealth and boosted health and hygiene awareness in impoverished communities. The company's sustainable and innovative approach has helped it to penetrate the rural areas where two-thirds of India's 1.1bn population live.
First it launched an entrepreneurial programme called Shakti that employs and empowers underprivileged rural women to peddle HL's products like Lifebuoy and Pepsodent toothpaste, often in affordable, single-use sachets.
Shakti entrepreneurs are trained to sell to homes and three to five neighbouring villages. They're given intensive training and mentoring and are likely to earn on average 800 Rs a month, which often doubles a household income. It's a significant benefit to the business because they have breakthrough reach and access to rural communities.
Today, there are over 45,000 Shakti entrepreneurs across 15 states with a goal to have a rural sales force of 100,000 by 2010.
Similarly, LifeBuoy Swasthya Chetna is a rural health and hygiene initiative run by Hindustan Unilever to spread awareness about the importance of washing hands with soap.
In rural India there's a lack of awareness about germs causing disease. Diarrhoea kills a child every 10 seconds and one third of these deaths come from India, a total of one million children. A study from the London School of Tropical Medicine has shown that washing hands with soap and water reduces diarrhoea by 47%.
Lifebuoy is India's leading health soap brand and Hindustan Unilever decided it should play a key role in propagating health and hygiene awareness in villages. Aside from the social benefits, there was obviously a business objective to increase soap consumption in rural India.
Lifebuoy Swathya Chetna is a handwash programme that toured the rural areas targeting mothers and children. The campaign has been divided into various phases. In the initial phase, a health development facilitator and an assistant initiates contact and interacts with students and influencers of the community, like medical practitioners and school teachers.
They use a number of tools including a 'Glo-germ demonstration', which makes unseen germs visible and emphasises the need to use soap to wash hands and kill germs and a quiz with prizes.
The first interaction with students is then replicated with the women and finally the rest of the community. The various stages help to reinforce the message to drive behaviour change and encourage hand washing. Since 2002 the programme has contacted a total of 40,000 villages and 105 million people.